


Twinstick

by dogblog



Category: Little Nightmares (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, more to possibly be added as i go along
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-21 01:53:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30014304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogblog/pseuds/dogblog
Summary: He's lived here for as long as he can remember. Safe and isolated, with only the transmission and his mentor for company.He wants out.But the City is their domain. And the other won't let him go so easily.
Relationships: Mono & The Thin Man (Little Nightmares)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 49





	1. Chapter 1

This world in which he lives is his home. Their home. Crumbling walls and decaying streets, a dying city in a dying realm. 

It isn't a world he's allowed much access to, for his safety until he comes further into his abilities. His home is in the tower, away from the decay, the monsters, the suffering that spans their empire. The static buzzes at the back of his mind, soft and faint but aware as his mentor always has been. The tower is a great conundrum, a focal point for all that lives, and from within it, Mono has never ventured beyond.

His room is happiness and safety in a sea of danger, covered in soft carpet and clean walls, piles of toys and hats. The door is locked, has always been locked, but he knows the city outside that he has never seen, felt deep through the transmission as keenly as if he had been there himself. Violence, hatred, emptiness, things rotting through the floorboards and programs channeling the transmission into countless lives. It isn't a kind world.

Stuck there, in his room of safety, with only his mentor for company and the Tower at all sides, giving and feeding and showing, some days the cries of the world are all he knows.

He wants to leave.

The door is always locked. When he wakes up, there is food and drink and everything he could ever want, and no matter how much he stays awake, he can't find anything that tries to come in. Nothing at all that could ever warrant him stepping out of the confines.

All he has at his disposal is a single television, sitting in the corner of his room on a night stand. Always turned off, but for the occasion that his mentor comes to visit, and never a way to turn it on otherwise. More of a decoration than anything.

It's risky. To wait until his mentor has access in order to make the jump. He doesn't know if he can do it, although he's seen the other come through with no effort at all. Outside of their connection, his abilities are nonexistent.

There's a lot of things that can - that will - go wrong. Or maybe nothing will. Maybe he'll just look like an idiot, and he'll be stuck here forever. There's too many unknowns.

But he has to try.

So he'll wait. Bide his time. Act perfectly normal, to keep the other at bay, calm and content and aware. And when he finally visits - finally gives him an opening - Mono will take it, with all the force and fury of an animal, of a rat cornered and dying.

And his mind will scream as he pushes through the brink, too fast to think, to give himself time to adjust, mind and body dying with the pain but scrambling to focus with a wild fervor that he's never before felt in his life, pushing, forcing the transmission to his will, a hand beginning to reach for him just as his own hands sink through the glass, and--

He goes dark.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mono sets off. He learns things are going to be harder than he thought.

He wakes with a cough.

Slowly, does he come to. Feeling the ground and hearing the noise just outside. Things are different than they were, and for a moment he forgets what's happened, where he is. The carpet is far harder than it used to be, and water soaks into his back through his clothes.

Everything is dark. There is a window just in front of him, smashed to pieces, and beyond he sees a road, cracked and littered with rubble. The room he's in is a ruin, wood and wire, broken walls. It isn't his.

He remembers, just as a noise draws him, and he turns his head. A TV sits smoking, its glass shattered to pieces. The model is different from his own, older somehow.

Everything is different. Everything is _outside_. And Mono has to hold a breath to keep himself from doing something stupid at the surge of excitement he feels at that fact. Outside, he's outside of the Tower. It actually worked!

Carefully, he stands, minding the shattered glass on the ground by his bare feet, tiptoeing to the window and, after a second, stepping gingerly outside. Rain hits his head abruptly in a downpour, the smell of ozone and oil almost enough to make him want to cough. A lot of buildings surround him, curling and caving in, each in some measure of decay, and instinctively almost he knows that he's in the City.

Just vaguely can he feel the Transmission, buzzing in his head, fluctuating with the after-effects of something. It makes his hair stand up, as though he'd rubbed static electricity on himself, and he ducks back when he hears more than a few warbling shrieks tearing down the street. Something must've happened, but right now he doesn't have time to think about it.

The Tower isn't far, and at this distance he won't have much time before he's noticed. He needs to get as far away as he can, as quickly as he can, until he can't feel it - _him_ \- anymore. That's all that matters.

* * *

What Mono learns, very quickly, is that he's not going to be going _anywhere_ if he can't manage to survive for longer than a day. Or an hour.

There are the ruins. Electrical wires littering the streets, rain gathering in puddles which spark with the current. There is falling brick and mortar, mountains of rubble that he has to cross in order to get anywhere, scraping his knees, skinning the soles of of his feet, blood trailing behind him. He falls, more than a few times, and his body aches with hidden bruises.

There are monsters. People that look like he and his mentor, except their faces are twisted, or else they don't have any faces at all. Their obsession is the screen, the Transmission that lures them in and keeps them hooked. Usually, they aren't much of a problem. He aims to avoid the screens far more than them, and as long as they have their entertainment, nothing else could matter. But there is the stray that goes without, the occasional near run in that makes him hide with a heart that pitters in his chest.

There is hunger. A gnawing in his stomach that cries for something to fill his belly. In his room, it wasn't a problem. There was everything he could ever want, and he never had to worry about anything. In the City, he has to dig for scraps in the hopes of finding a single speck of _something_.

But worst of everything, there is the sense of the other in his mind, echoing with each pulse of the Transmission. The signal digs in and presses, aware of him now, aware that he still exists but without knowing exactly where. So close is he to the Tower that it takes a continual effort just to ignore it, to ignore that pervading sense of something calling him to the nearest TV screen. The Thin Man is looking for him.

With all his might, he stamps down on the burning static calling him and forces it into the back of his mind. Right now, more than anything, he needs to find food.

His search takes him everywhere and nowhere at the same time, and for how long, he doesn't know. An hour or an eternity, he can't ever tell in this City. He digs where he can, debris and old garbage, but what is in there smells foul and doesn't look a thing like what he's used to eating. He checks furniture, the inside of buildings while keeping care to avoid those with televisions and connections to the Tower outside, but all he gets is paper, junk, more debris, and a few fridges full of filth long unrecognizeable.

His stomach is starting to hurt. His legs are starting to tremble a little bit with the need for something, anything, and he feels a cold shiver in his chest at the thought that there just maybe isn't anything at all here. Nothing but broken buildings and broken monsters, and how was he supposed to survive like that?

There's a frantic edge of tired desperation on the fringes when he finally, finally, comes across a building with a sign long faded and the image of what looks like an apple. The windows are smashed, the door blown to bits, and inside he can see that most of the shelves have been stripped, toppled over, items a mushy mess on the floor, but still, if it has even one thing, it'll be better luck than he's had since getting here.

So Mono steps on through, careful of the glass at his feet and tiptoeing inside, careful not to disturb anything that might be lurking, although by the quiet of the place he's doubtful. It's pretty dark in here, so dark he has to squint to see where he's going, and as he traverses towards the back what little light there is coming from outside sputters out until he's forced to touch the shelves for guidance.

He doesn't hold out much hope that there's anything edible here, but still, he looks. Takes his time and keeps himself slow, feeling, touching, sniffing and dropping when the smell is too rotten to consider. From one aisle to the next he does that, pressing further and further back until the shelves are stacked high with an assortment of things and goods are piled haphazardly on the ground.

He's so focused, so surrounded by silence that he doesn't notice anything until.

He hears it. From behind.

Static. The sound of a kind of clicking. Rasping breaths. Towards the back of the store.

His head turns, slowly.

And the shriek makes his blood run cold.

Mono moves before he's thinking about it, a scream held tight in his throat as, from only a few feet away, a Viewer scrambles after him, uncannily aware of where he's going despite the lack of expression on their face. He can't catch a good glimpse of them, it's too dark, but he can _hear_ them and they're getting closer by the minute. Why are they here. Is there a TV somewhere? It doesn't make sense. They shouldn't _be_ here!

A caterwaul that's all fritz and distortion makes his eyes water and he turns, clamoring over toppled shelves and wooden planks, bags and boxes knocking down to the floor in his wake, and he grits his teeth and lets out a noise when he feels something stab at the sole of his foot, sharp and painful. He can hear the Viewer, feel them climbing, scrambling after him, shaking the shelves and pushing against them with a strength that belies their form.

Mono only topples off to the other aisle just as the shelves break and collapse under the Viewer's weight with a screech of wood and metal and he doesn't think, just runs the first direction he can see, glancing from side to side, looking for an opening, any opening that will give him enough space to _hide_. It's too dark. He can't see. There's too much in the way. They're right behind him. He can't _see_.

A shriek of static, close by, too close too close, and he does the first thing he can think of and just. Ducks. Against the shelves, against the fallen boxes and bags that smell like sewage. Gets to his belly and crawls as far into the junk pile as he can, which isn't far at all.

He doesn't think it'll work. He's too far out in the open and he just knows he's going to die. The closer their footsteps reach, the more his blood pools in his stomach, rings in his ears, and he's too aware of the other buzzing in his mind, hovering, coating his hair in phantom static like a hand hovering a little too close to his head but just yet to touch, ready and waiting.

Maybe...

Maybe--

He hears the Viewer pass him with a quiet, irritated clicking noise. Their footsteps are cautious, heavy. Listening.

Mono doesn't move.

Slowly, they continue on. Past him and down into the darkness of the building, the noises in their throat trailing off as they vanish further inside. Mono doesn't move even after they've long disappeared. He lays there, heart in his throat, limbs coiled like a spring ready to snap.

Something feels like it wants to squirm out of his throat, the longer he stays there, and he worries for a weird second that it's his stomach, his heart, everything in his body, and he heaves with the force that it takes to keep his innards inside.

He heaves, and keeps heaving, hands scraping to cover his mouth as his eyes squeeze tight and burn with salt that trails down his cheeks in wet smears. Prone in the shop, in the dark, trembling but stiff, he struggles so _hard_ to keep himself from puking. From crying. From making any kind of noise that would disturb the silence of the old, decrepit building.

He wants to go home. Back to where it's safe. He wants his toys. He wants his hats. He wants his blanket and his bed. He wants his mentor. 

He wants his mentor.

* * *

When Mono crawls out of the building, he comes with a limp, many cuts, many bruises, and two paper bags.

The first one is filled with food. Little things that don't take much weight, it's mostly moldy, stale bread, a bit of cheese, and a beaten can of fruit. It's probably a bad idea to carry stuff like this, and he knows he won't have the luxury of taking it with him if another Viewer catches his tail, but he's hoping he'll be able to eat enough on the way that he won't have to worry about that.

The second bag is empty, upside down, and sits firmly on his head, with two holes torn ungracefully from the paper for his eyes to see through. Wearing a hat had always brought him comfort, and so he had many back home. Without one, he'd felt naked, and vulnerable, and in a world that seemed to want nothing more than to kill him...

He was going to need as much safety as he could get.

The other's signal hums heavy in the back of his mind, and Mono knows he isn't far.

He needs to get going.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes i am aware this is a slow chapter we will Get There

**Author's Note:**

> this probably won't be very long, headcanons mixed with a mild au? we'll see where it goes!


End file.
